2207 - The Great Gig In The Sky

2012-11-01

Interesting: about two weeks ago I forgot to mention that this blog had its sixth anniversary. Six years, one image per day, not always taken that day (but mostly), not always posted that day (but frequently).

Today we had a mix of rain and snow, it was cold and unfriendly, thus I have tried to stay inside. The Image of the Day was taken from the terrace and most of the time I have spent photographing Nikon equipment to put it up for sale. It’s tedious 🙂

The Song of the Day is a blasphemous Reggae version of Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig In The Sky”, taken from the 2003 album “Dub Side Of The Moon”. Hear it on YouTube. And if you can’t stand it, there’s always the original 😄

There are 4 comments

Subhash   (2012-11-04)

> The Song of the Day is a blasphemous Reggae version of Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig In The Sky” Great! As a Olympus photographer (E-330, E-3, E-5; no mFT - lenses from 7 to 300 mm) I am interested in the reasons that make you change from Nikon to Olympus.

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andreas   (2012-11-05)

Size and weight. Quality-wise I was pretty satisfied with the D300. I mean, there is almost always a "better", but from a certain point on and for a certain purpose there is also a "good enough". The D200 was not "good enough", the D300 was. From my experiments with the Panasonic LX5 though, I knew how much easier it was to go "light". The LX5 was not "good enough", but in good light it was close. Then I tried the Olympus E-P2. Bigger, heavier, worse ergonomics than both the D300 and the LX5, image quality about as good as the D200. Not "good enough". The OM-D is "more than good enough". It's better than the D300, much lighter itself, and especially the lenses are much smaller and much lighter than everything on the Nikon side. At the same time they are excellent. I strongly believe that m4/3 is the sweet spot when it comes to compact systems. The quality is there and, opposed to most of the competition, the lenses are substantially smaller than everything for APS-C. Look at the Sony NEX7. It's a fine, small camera. Its image quality is even better than that of the OM-D, but only slightly so, mostly due to added resolution. And now add lenses. Soon the size and weight advantage of the small body is diminishing, because the lenses don't get smaller. Add a tele and you have an unbalanced, front-heavy mess. Look at the Sony 50/1.8 OS, the closest lens to the fabulous Olympus 45/1.8. It's in no way heavy, but it still weighs almost twice as much as the Olympus. Same with the Sony 24/1.8 and the Panasonic 20/1.7. Add the fact that Sony still has almost no native lenses and that m4/3 has plenty of everything but super-teles. But then, I didn't buy super-teles for Nikon either 🙂

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Subhash   (2012-11-05)

Thank you for this explanation! I myself use the 70-300 mm f/4-5.6 lens. That is a "standard lens" which means not in the "pro" or "top pro" series but for me it is good enough. It is not heavy, sharp enough and really quick focusing doesn't matter for me most of the time. (I shoot landscapes and abstract photography and many times I use the manual focus.) Also I like to use it in the distance around 1 meter because of the possibility to clearly separate the subject from the background. There are some fine portraits in my stock also. If one wants quick auto focus, better lens speed and finest quality (and water and dust protection!) the 50-200 mm f/2.8-3.5 seems to be an excellent choice. And with the tele converter EC 14 you still have a lens speed of f/4 to f/5 at the range of 70-280 mm. But all this is FourThirds (which I use) and for you there is an other lens range as you know certainly. (And an adapter for FT lenses.) The mFT 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 does not suit you?

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andreas   (2012-11-05)

I haven't really thought much about long lenses so far. The 40-150 is extremely light, cheap and quite capable in good light, and at the moment I still have the Sigma 150/2.8 Macro for Nikon with Novoflex adapter, a heavy monster of a lens, but beautifully sharp wide open. I'll sell that though. I consider getting a used Nikon 180/2.8 AI-S. That would be more or less in the price range of what I can get for the Sigma, but it is designed for manual focus and thus has a longer focus throw. A few months ago I even saw a Canon FD 300/2.8 manual focus lens of extremely high quality for slightly below 1000€. Of course I didn't buy it, but I may get something like that if I want extreme reach. Otoh, once you're there you can also start thinking about the Oly 150/2.0 🙂 But again, at the moment it is all geared toward light weight. Long lenses and light weight, that's either an extreme compromise or a contradiction 🙂

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